Huckleberries Online

Sisyphus: Oh For An Old Time Flamefest

Posted by DFO

May 20, 2009 6:04 a.m. • 8 comments

Sisyphus: I think Dave is getting filled with contentment after the honeymoon from chasing so many of the vocal ones away. At least before he would interact once in while. Now he just comes in, kicks up some posts, leans back in his chair and ignores us. He just sits there and listens to that damn scanner. We slave over hot blogs all day long and for what? How can a person who works in the newspaper business have nothing to say. We should start a flame war to see if we can get his attention. That’ll show him. I’m just so unfulfilled. (sniffle)

Question: Isn’t it better that I toss out good topics for you guys to chew up — than for me to get involved in the fray and possibly feed your fears that I’m too biased on a topic?

Eight comments on this post so far. Add yours!

Kage_Mann on May 20 at 7:01 a.m.
Anyway,you can still jab someone, without going for the knockout statement. I know liberals long for the days of the old HBO flame wars. ;-p
JeanieSpokane on May 20 at 8:23 a.m.
First thing in the morning, I scan the new topics. Pick one. And I’m off to a flying start! I avoid flames and other chaos.
Bent on May 20 at 8:50 a.m.
I have to side with Sis on this one, DFO. It’s nice to drag you into the fray now and then. You are just so much fun when you get all worked up…
Charlie on May 20 at 9:01 a.m.
Flame throwers once in awhile back up and get burned, crispy critters anyone. ;-)
BethB on May 20 at 11:49 a.m.
“Too biased”? Or “just biased enough”?

;-)
Cis on May 20 at 11:51 a.m.
Ok … I will ask the question… and then leave to check back later…..

What do you do Dave? I am asking honestly and not a snide remark…. see when I started here, you were doing Huckleberries or NHB in the paper.. with fresh stuff… you did editorial with fresh ideas…not from here… and then you were here..with out comments just emails coming your way…

Now… you still do Huckberries in the paper but it is picks from the blog… as I see it.. (remember my comment in the beginning of Ground hog day, because they were the same) I know there are those who doing read the blog so reading it in the paper brings them up to speed with the blog. But not very hard to do for your side…As it is like the best of HBO…for the week.

You do copy paste from other areas to give us different subjects… kind of a reader’s digest type deal, for us to click to read if we are interested in it. And then you pull from our blogs, of interest. I realize this takes time, to find interesting or thoughtful, sometimes hot topics subjects.

And this might seem like I might be biting the hand that feeds me, so to speak….I do bow to the fact that you started me into this addiction called blogging. But unless I do a Lost in the 50’s type of a deal… most of my references come from else where. I know and it is ok with me… that I am not a national type blog and not really much of a big local one either.

But there are a lot of people out there connected to the blog that do daily’s… Marianne Love comes to mind, as does Dogwalking, and a few others.with fresh opinions of their own… mine is only 2/3rd orginials… so can you give us a timeline of how your day goes so we understand? I hope you take this as it is intended, not a slam, but an honest question so we know.

Also your interactions in the comments are helpful, because then you become one of us… other wise you are zoo keeper who throws feed to us type of deal.

Heading out for a walk with the dog and mail… but will check out to see if I am kicked off or not…
Stickman on May 20 at 10:02 p.m.
I’m with Bent and Sis. We are becoming too calm of late.
Sam on May 20 at 11:10 p.m.
I’d hate to weigh in because it seems that every time I speak up about thoughts I have on this place, or even make a joke, I end up in trouble.

Needless to say, some of my favorite times on here have been watching some heated matches that have or have not included DFO as well as Steve Smith. I always thought it was interesting to see those who actually are at the local information source interacting with the public in the community conversation.

Sometimes having the blogmeister interact doesn’t have to me that the blogmeister gives their opinion … in my opinion. Asking questions, trying to get commenters to expand on their thoughts, challenging their views with what you think others might be thinking on the topic can be engaging and keep the conversation flowing. It’s something that doesn’t happen here I’d love to see.

Then again, I do it on the blog I run and even though I’m merely trying to keep conversation flowing people still seem to think I ask the question because it’s my opinion. DFO said in an earlier post that it’s a “damned-if-I-do, damned-if,I-don’t” type of situation, and I agree. But I think asking those questions, keeping conversation flowing and challenging people on all sides is critical to keep the blog interesting and to keep the community truly engaged. Letting people ramble about their own thoughts without asking for factual back-ups, seeking to see if they can at all agree with the other side (and if not, why not), getting more exposition on why they think the way they do, etc, is far more entertaining to me than an echo chamber.

A blog will never be perfect and not every conversation will be amazing. But more can be done on a newspaper blog than just letting people politely say what they always think about something and move on to the next thing so they can say the same exact thing again. That seems to be what happens here these days. Bob, Thom, AnyMouse, DanG, MarySouza, Sisyphus and many others were the pepper and salt to the scrambled eggs that is HBO.

Let the hand slapping begin.

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About this blog

D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.